I’d been wanting to move for a while. Grand Rapids bored me and I was sick of snow, ice and being cold. After Winter 2020, I vowed to be out of Michigan before the next winter. My plans were to travel to new-to-me cities in Spring and Summer 2020, pick a place to call home and relocate in Autumn 2020. In March 2020, the world shut down and my plans were thwarted.
In January 2021, a customer at D&W encouraged me to travel. Take a break, get out of Michigan, see someplace new. After that encouragement, I decided to visit my friend Devin in Yuma, Arizona in late March/early April 2021. Yuma was a strange city, but the weather was awesome. I began entertaining the idea of living in Arizona. Hetus had lived in the Phoenix area since I was a little kid. But if I moved to Arizona, I wanted someplace that I could claim as my own.
Everyone in Michigan warned me how hot Arizona got in the summer. If I was going to live there, I realized it’d be wise to experience the heat beforehand. So I returned to Devin and Yuma in late June/early July 2021, this time adding on a side trip to Tucson (my dad’s suggestion). The 113° was bearable, although I knew it’d get hotter as the summer progressed.
My 2020 plan was unfolding, just one year later.